This is not a New Age site, nor does it concern itself with the pale resurrection of ancient traditions in the name of modern religious classicism. Many people ask what shamanism is, but perhaps the shamanic is best defined, in modern culture, by what it is not.

Let's start with the word 'shaman'. Shaman is gender neutral - there are no shamen or shawomen, only shamans, big ones and little ones. The word itself was taken from the Tungis tribe in Siberia by 19th century anthropologists.

I guess the issue here is one of cosmology. The difficulty for the Western Mind in all this is how it is trained to perceive itself as a distinct and seperate entity from all other energies.

The shamanic world view is very different.

In that paradigm, we are perceived as being connected essentially to an almost infinite number of other energies which go together to make up our universe. So, while we may operate as individuals, with individual identities, we are at the same time functioning as part of a larger, interconnected whole.

Shamanism is a dance across the unknown, a journey to test the limits of the human heart. Shamanism devolves you, rebuilding you on a different model of what a human can be. Whether good or bad, it is certainly different.